step 1.  get a any old ipod on ebay
step 2. put a single mp3 tune on it
step 3. place it in a big box, with the play button located right  
under a coin sized slot


openbsd is great, but it's not the hammer for all nails...

/Pete


On 28 Dec 2007, at 3:34 AM, Nick Holland wrote:

> I've got a little project I'm working on here.
> It involves stuffing a computer in a donation box with a
> money detector, so every time someone tosses money in the box,
> it plays an MP3 file.
>
> (no, you can't make a living at this.  At least, *I* can't)
>
> The first two of these I did were many years ago, and we used a
> 486 running a simple DOS app.  Well, computers that run DOS well
> are gone, and trying to bring up a new program to play sound
> files on any of the modern sound chips would be (not) fun...and
> annoying the next time the hardware all changes again.
>
> So, for this generation, I'm using OpenBSD, mpg321, and a 1G
> CF flash device attached to an CF-> IDE interface.
>
> However, this is the first time I've ever done an OpenBSD system
> that wasn't going to be attached to some kind of network for
> (hopefully) years at a time.  In fact, hopefully, it will NEVER
> be attached to a network.  And, while I got a 1G CF device, I
> could imagine doing something stupid and having it slowly fill
> the CF media and six months from now getting a call saying, "It
> died.  Come fix it", and since it will be in another country and
> probably a ten hour drive away, I'd like to avoid that. :)
> Once this thing is deployed, I won't have access to it at all,
> so I'll have no ability to spot a potential problem or fix it.
>
> SO, to try to keep things quiet, I've disabled the daily, weekly,
> and monthly scripts, I've disabled sendmail in /etc/rc.conf.local.
> Before I ship it out, I'll move /var/log and /var/tmp to point to
> a mfs system, so hopefully, if something starts logging, a power
> cycle will dump everything.  Only 60M is mounted RW, so it fsck's
> very quickly, and my app writes only to the MFS.
>
> What have I forgotten?  Is there anything else I can do to avoid
> slapping my forehead and saying, "D'oh! Forgot to ..." before I
> ship it out fully detached?  The good news is I'm pretty sure
> there is at least one OpenBSD developer near-by, but that's just
> all the more reason to make sure I don't screw it up, I'll never
> live it down. :)
>
> Nick.

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